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lfstudios10
Contributor
Contributor

MacPro Coredump with PCI passthrough

When doing a PCI passthrough of an Atto UL5D I get a pink screen and then it talks about a coredump.  Where can I find this dump to post it online so you folks can help me out?

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dariusd
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Hi lfstudios10,

If you are using the original release of ESXi 5.1 (build 799733), note that there is a well-known problem with PCI passthrough disagreeing with certain PCI devices and giving a pink screen...  See this KB article.  That issue has been resolved in the latest ESXi 5.1 patch release.

If that's not what you're seeing there, a good starting point for troubleshooting is simply to post a screenshot (or a photo) of the pink screen here in the forum.

Cheers,

--

Darius

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lfstudios10
Contributor
Contributor

Just downloaded the latest version for this install so I assume the patch would already be there.  Am I wrong?

Attached is the pic

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dariusd
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

The top of the screen says you're currently running Releasebuild-799733, which is the originally released ESXi 5.1.

The stack trace indicates the failure is in PCI_GetExtCapIdx, which is the issue in KB 2039030, and which has been resolved in the updates since the original release.

Grab the latest updates and you should be good to go.

Cheers,

--

Darius

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lfstudios10
Contributor
Contributor

OK.  I scrwewed up.  I am kind of new to VMware.  Can you explain how ot apply the update?

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dariusd
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

See KB 2035775 for details of the patch.  Towards the bottom of that document is a section on "Patch Download and Installation" that describes a few ways to obtain and install the patch.  The best approach to install it may be just to follow the instructions in this thread, which I think matches closely with what you need to do.

(Disclaimer: My experience with host patching is practically zero!)

Cheers,

--

Darius

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lfstudios10
Contributor
Contributor

Awesome.  I figured it all out and no more pink screen when I do a passthrough.  I do have a related quesiton, howevver.  I if I add PCI cards to a system it boots fine and they show up in the OS.  WHen I add a USB drive the drive shows up but the cards dissappear from the OS even though they are shown in VMWare as being part of the system.  If I remove the USB device it still doesn't fix it.  If I remove and add the PCI devices again it still doesn't fix it.  Only a restart of the host fixed it.  Any ideas?

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